Loving Asher Read online

  Loving Asher

  Maya Rossi

  My Family, my joy

  Copyright © Maya Rossi, 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any manner without the written permission of the owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.

  Loving Asher

  Maya Rossi

  Chapter one

  Chapter two

  Chapter three

  Chapter four

  Chapter five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter seven

  Chapter eight

  Chapter one

  “He said to get off,” Lane, my vice captain and sometimes friend stated the obvious. She pushed short blond hairs off her forehead, blue eyes narrowed on my face.

  What the hell was wrong with him? To think I spent a greater part of a decade searching for this man. Now I rued the day he stumbled into my life. OK, I couldn’t regret that day but I could regret his becoming my coach.

  “Georgie,” Lane began, “you--”

  “What?” I shouted unnecessarily, conscious of the thousands of eyes aimed at me in that moment, conscious that he was watching my humiliation. Fear dulled my senses, made me rash. “He can’t pull his captain and best player off after fifteen minutes, it’s not done.”

  “He just did,” Peggy returned smugly.

  The annoying piece of shit had jogged from her position all the way at the defence line just to tell say that? But I couldn’t reply, assaulted by constricting emotions at once. The smell of the grass was never fresher, the weight of my uniform, the grasp of the captain’s armband high on my arm, enervated my senses, grounded me in the present.

  I took a deep breath, and another. There should be another way out of this.

  Murmurs rose from the crowd followed quickly by an anticipatory silence like they sensed they were about to watch more than a football match today.

  “You’re fucking drawing attention, Georgie,” Lane leaned forward so she spoke directly to my ear, “take a deep breath, give me the band--”

  “Yeah, give her the damn band. You never deserved to be captain anyway,” Peggy quipped with a grin that showed off all her teeth. They glowed a stark white in her dark face, displaying her dimples.

  How many times had she undermined my authority in the past? And I had let her get away with it for the team’s sake. No longer.

  Two steps later, I got in her face. “Fuck off.”

  Lane caught my arm. The referee came running. She said something but I didn’t hear. Thunder, the echoes of my career crashing, mockery from my team mates, the never ending discussion from sports analysts roared in my ears. I caught a movement out of the corner of my eyes from the technical area.

  Coach Asher Billings rose and stepped forward to stand on the touchline. Six feet three inches tall, a runners body clad in a three piece suit. Our eyes met. Low down at the very heart of me as I held that icy blue eyes, I filled with warmth. I set my jaw, lifting my chin belligerently.

  My situation was as common place as a trope in story telling. When clubs change coaches, some careers are bound to fail because the new coach might likely not want the current batch of players. Only it wasn’t supposed to happen to me, I was the team captain. The best player for the last season.

  The assistant coach stepped up. Jane Parrish. A sigh of relief ghosted out of me. She would remind him, tell that annoying fool what I meant to the club. What I am to this club, how much I have sacrificed.

  “Think she’ll make him stand down,” Peggy taunted, her breath reeking of the gum she chewed during the game drifted over my cheeks, “maybe she might have succeeded, what? Two minutes ago.” She glanced at the huge clock manned atop the stadium. “But you’ve made him look the fool. And that jaw?” she hummed low and deep. “Tell me, does he look like a beta to you?”

  No.

  I knew this. As Caleb he had taken on the world for me and won. Normally, I won’t be such a bitch. I wasn’t one to flaunt the coach’s orders or act like I was bigger than the club. But I wasn’t like the other girls. I couldn’t just go home after being substituted so early like nothing happened.

  There would be consequences.

  The referee said something again, her voice insistent and angry. I had my eyes aimed at the touchline. The jaw Peggy mentioned hardened, a muscle ticking dangerously at the side. My stomach sank. He wasn’t going to stand down.

  Still, I waited, thinking to make him commit him like a goalkeeper to a penalty. My eyes burned, a nerve at the corner bunching and releasing almost painfully. If I cried I won’t be able to show my face at the club for the shame.

  Abruptly, Asher pulled away from Jane and stepped into the field. I stiffened in amazement. Was he really going to come in and pull me off the field physically?

  “Oh, boy,” Peggy laughed throatily, “this is a drama for the ages. Well done, Captain.”

  “Get the hell out, Georgie,” Lane gritted out, “you’ve completely fucked things up.”

  Jesus. Asher pushed off one of the referees and stepped on the pitch. The on field ref ran off to quench that fire. Humiliated and disgraced, I tugged off the captain’s arm band and blindly shoved it at Lane.

  The crowd were on their feet, their heavy judgemental eyes a weight too heavy to bear. The ref handed me the expected card. My shoulders dropped. A leaden weight stealing through and crushing my chest, making every breath a feat of agony.

  I was never more conscious of my six feet height, the length of my legs and my chin length hair. A strand of my air caught on my eyelashes, nearly wringing out a tear. The distance to the technical area and the safety of the locker room seemed endless. My feet shook like those of a new born calf as my breath burned my lungs to a crisp.

  As I drew close to the technical area, the commotion continued as Asher continued to protest his card. Like a coward, I gave them a wide berth and thankfully disappeared into the locker room. In five minutes, I had changed and had my bags ready to go.

  Heavy threads pounded the halls and Asher appeared. In his crisp suit and tie, he looked more like a banker than a football coach. He belonged in a boardroom not on the football field. But he was one of a few crop of young coaches who had never kicked a ball in their lives who took up coaching as a hobby.

  I dearly wished he would go back to managing his company.

  Asher shoved his hands into his pockets and regarded me from beneath his brows, like I belonged somewhere beneath his mirror-shine dress shoes. I bristled and opened my mouth. My first mistake.

  “You humiliated me out there,” I fumed, pointing at the field where the game had continued without me. The thought caused my eyes to prickle with tears. “You want to use me to prove your coaching chops, to show you’ve got balls?”

  He moved, coming up so close our chests brushed. With every breath, my breasts scraped the walls of his chest. Something in his unchanging expression caused my words to peter out. I swallowed. Just as the heavenly smell of the cologne and musk hit my nostrils, he arched a mocking eyebrow.

  I wasn’t prepared for what he did next. Grabbing my hand, he pushed it between his legs. Nostrils flaring, icy blue eyes going arctic,he sneered. “They are two balls in there, can you feel it?”

  Cheeks burning, heart slamming against my ribs with the speed of a return ball from Serena Williams, I snatched my hands back with so much force my back collided with the locker.

  “If you throw the kind of tantrum you did today, attempt to undermine my authority in anyway again, you’ll find yourself out of this club faster than you can say ‘hi.”

  I shook my head, left hand cradling my right, certain I would feel the weight of his balls and penis for eternity. “What did I ever do to you, Caleb?”


  Color scored his high cheekbones a second before his gaze grew hooded. “Not Caleb, Asher. don’t bring the past into this. You’re just a player, I’m your--”

  “I’m not just a player,” I seethed, struggling to see past those damning words, “I’m--”

  “Just a player and no longer my captain.” He tilted his head to the side, lips curling in disgust.

  He looked so smug dashing my hopes, destroying everything I’ve worked for. “You can’t do this,” I whispered, “I’ve given so much, worked so hard--”

  “And I appreciate it,” he said slowly, “but we, the club need to move on--”

  “What?” I asked faintly.

  “Lane will take over your--”

  I made some kind of noise, a keening cry or worse. His eyelids dropped, a bit of the Caleb leaking through. His eyes caught mine, softening slightly.

  “Look, you’re a better player than you are a captain. You lost form when you got the band, take a step back--”

  “I’m going to fight this,” I vowed, “don’t think I won’t.” My eyes filled with tears despite my effort to blink them back. “I’m the captain of this club. I was captain before you became a coach.”

  He laughed scornfully. “Don’t. And that’s an advise. Don’t go toe to toe with me, you’ll regret it.

  I didn’t wait to hear more. I grabbed my bag and dashed out of the locker room.

  Chapter two

  Maybe father was right. Maybe I didn’t have what it took to be an elite footballer. Stripped of the captaincy and suspended for two weeks, how can I prove myself worthy of the captainship with the arm band taken away. Peggy would smirk, many of my team mates would gloat.

  But what did it say about me if the team would be happy to see my back?

  I had to get that arm band somehow before visiting my father next week. But when I recalled Asher’s implacability, it was a struggle to raise my flagging hopes.

  “You’ve got to stop over thinking this,” Asher’s wife, Rach said.

  “Over thinking? Did you watch it? He humiliated me.”

  Rach adjusted the neck of her hospital gown and sighed. I bowed my head in shame. An important hospital appointment was hardly the time to talk about my career. “I’m sorry.” I fiddled with the edge of the bed sheets. “I’m being selfish.”

  Rach scoffed, rolling her lovely hazel eyes. Even with her hair cropped off from the year long fight against cancer, I couldn’t help marveling at her beauty. I reached for her hand, squeezing lightly. “You’re so strong, my inspiration.”

  She laughed. “Your constant fight with my husband is my inspiration. So much fire, jeez. When he realized who you were, I thought, finally. He searched for you for so long I urged him to apply for the coaching job.”

  “Doesn’t seem like it,” I murmured, renewed anger surging through me when I recalled some of our previous fights. “I think he hates me sometimes.”

  Rach threw a sidelong glance, unreadable and weighty. “I think it’s hot.”

  My eyes widened in disbelief. “Hot? Are you mad?”

  She folded her arms, defiant and miffed? “These fights you two have? It’s like watching someone else. I remember the water kicking incident about strategy, right on the touchline, daaammmmnnn.”

  “I was being a brat,” I confessed. “It wasn’t like he was wrong most of the time.”

  “So, you were just being contrary.” At my nod, Rach’s blond brows drew together in a frown. “Then why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why pick a fight?”

  Her question threw me off kilter. My gaze swerved to the left and up to the metal IV stand and down to the curtain separating Rach’s room from the soft snores and muted television sounds on the other side. “I don’t know,” I finally uncurled my tongue to reply.

  “I’ve never seen this part of my husband. The back and forth, the clenched jaw, the stares,” she shivered, “so hot.”

  I felt my cheeks heat. “He’s an asshole, no offence.”

  Rach wasn’t listening. “He’s so different with me, gentle, loving, kind. Too kind.”

  “Too kind? That’s a bad thing?”

  “Yes,” she said sadly, “I think it is. Tell me about the kidnapping. Please.”

  I pulled away, goosebumps popping out on my forearms. Barely masking my revulsion, I rubbed my arms. “You could easily ask Asher about it.”

  “He never talks it, refuses to. Not the events, the change of name, nothing. Hell, I dare not mention it.”

  “I don’t like to talk about it either,” I admitted.

  Rach didn’t press for answers, instead letting the silence build. The noises from the nurses bustling about in the other rooms filling the awkward gap. After a six month injury layoff during my second year as a professional, I spent so much time in hospitals even the sight of one disgusts me.

  I drew in the smell of the fresh flowers I bought but even that didn’t mask the overpowering hospital mix of cleaning supplies, soap and bleached sheets.

  But Rach is so sweet, my greatest cheerleader. I thought my history with Asher would make things awkward between us but Rach welcomed me with open arms and never looked back.

  “The doctor says I’ve got months.”

  It took a full minute for her words to sink in. “No.”

  “Yes,” she ran a hand over her shaved head, “Yep. Three months or less.”

  Fear for my friend gripped me. “Jesus. I thought this is just a check up appointment and the goodnews will come at any moment.”

  “I think I’ve always known. The pain, being a liability, the constant encouragement from friends, Asher… I can’t do it any more.”

  I pressed a kiss to her fingers. “Have you told Asher?”

  “I will, but not yet--”

  “You have to.”

  “With the championship, I don’t want to. Not yet.”

  I swallowed, the simple act gritty with the friction, the bag of sand providing resistance. “We were childhood neighbors,” I whispered. “He was my brother’s best friend. Then, then,” I drew in much needed breath, “there was a psychopath on the loose those days, Oswald. He kidnapped Dan and then me. He took us to a shed in an isolated property. About three days later, Asher joined us.”

  “How old were you?”

  “I was seven, Asher and Dan ten.” Tears rolled down my cheeks and I dashed it off with my fists. “He took Dan on his way home from a local game in the neighborhood--”

  “He played football?”

  I smiled sadly. “He was soooo good. Father had high hopes.”

  “And that’s why you play?”

  I frowned. “No, I love the game.”

  “OK. What happened?”

  “Dan and Asher had a plan to escape. The man, his name was Oswald went out for supplies. I had this locket Dan got me for my birthday, I lost it as we ran.” My voice broke, Rach leaned over to pull me into her arms. Her bony elbows jabbed my side, a reminder of her drastic weight loss.

  “They got me out. Then I insisted I wanted my locket. Dan went for it and never returned.”

  “My God.”

  “Asher ran to the next house, called the police. Oswald died in the shootout and we discovered Dan’s body.”

  Unable to hold it any longer, I burst into tears. “Dad never forgave me, mother never recovered. I destroyed my family.”

  “Shhshsh,” Rach wiped away my tears.

  “I failed him.”

  Rach let me cry and I was grateful. She held me, saying nothing, her arms tight and warm. When I was all cried out, she leaned back and met my eyes.

  “Think Dan will blame you?”

  “No,” I admitted, “he was…great. The best brother.”

  Rach nodded, her hazel eyes went wide with apprehension. “I wanted to ask you… I had no idea your history was so…”

  “Dark?”

  “Yeah, I thought you were childhood sweethearts or something.”

  Under her scrutiny, I blush
ed hotly, drawing out of her arms to gulp some of my bottled water. “What?” I asked when her gaze became too piercing.

  A slow smile blossomed on her face. “You wanted him.”

  “No!”

  “Don’t lie to me. No way you didn’t want him, I bet Asher was cute as a boy.”